Cathleen Rohling: As our young center ramped volumes up after we were accredited and got all of our EHR record systems in place, we started to watch the flow of the patient. The staffing model we have found for our facility to work the best — because our physicians are fairly highly throughput — is one pre-op nurse, one post-op nurse, one sedating nurse per room and then a tech assist in the room. In the procedure room it’s the sedating nurse and a tech assist for the doctor, and then outside there’s a post-op nurse running that flow for the doctor in that room. Then there’s typically a CNA or a tech in the pre/post area supporting the flow all around — transporting patients back and forth, discharging patients to the cars, bringing them in from the waiting room and assisting them to undress, etc.
We found that to really be efficient and now we’re working with how we hire into those positions. We started with a base of employees at the time we were in the market two years ago. It was a very different employment market than it is today. We were not finding a great deal of part-time people. So we had to commit to more majority-time and full-time staff than I would have preferred. Now we are finding that the market is loosening up, and as we’re looking at those positions, like the tech positions, we’re able to look at half-time people or three-quarter time people. This way, once the flow is done for the day, they can leave and we don’t have the overheard of an eight-hour person.
As turnover occurs, we’ll go to more of a part-time/majority-time model than our current staffing enables us. Once we recruit our next physician, that will be our opportunity to really start to integrate this model. We have a base of six staff, now we can add some more variables. If we start mixing in some half-time or other part-time employees, we can get that balance we are looking for.
Learn more about GastroIntestinal Associates Endoscopy Center.
Read more ways GI ASCs can reduce costs and improve efficiency:
– 3 Ways a Young GI ASC Reduced Costs
– 5 Steps to Improve Operational Efficiency in a GI ASC
